I agree that there should be full disclosure on request. I bet that the council does know how much it is costing, too, they just don't want to admit it. I'm just not with the people who want to "stick it to businesses". I got my job from one, so I'm kind of partial to them sticking around.
We're talking about businesses getting taxpayer money to move to a town and many times putting small businesses that have been there for decades out of business. They are the same businesses who support the local communities more than the Wal-marts, Lowes and Walgreens.
They go into communities and the dollar they take in today is sent to their home office overnight. They provide minimum wage jobs; 39 hours a week. It is very harmful to samll towns.
Consider this: If you decided that you were going to expand onto your home a large room addition that makes the mechanics of living more suitable so you can add another child to your family, a child that will grow up and pay taxes, do you think that if you took your expansion project to the City Council and ask for a ten year abatement on the reassessed value of your home, that you would get it?
Of course, they would laugh at you. So, why are we not laughing at the corporations? What is so differnt from their expansion projects than yours? You add a room, they add a warehouse. You add furnishings to the room, they add equipment to the warehouse. You add a child to your family (who btw, grows to help around the house and ultimately finds a job or is instrumental in creating jobs) and they add an employee.
Is there any real difference other than scale? And if not, I say what is good for the goose is good for the gander. If we have to pay the full weight of reassessment by virtue of improving our residential properties with no recourse for relief, then corporations should be required to pay their share as well. Contrary to some on this forum, if the corporations get "breaks," it does fall back upon those who do not! Namely, residents!
The astute business man understands, especially in terms of economies of scale, that a loss of financial opportunity can never be regained. Such is the nature of the abatement. Once we say yes, we can never regain that loss. And that is why the abatement should be used "sparingly."
Are you old enough to remember when a soda drink was a treat instead of a general rule of consumption? Well, if you are, then you are old enough to see how the exception in using the abatement nowadays has become the general rule as well. Just as the mass doses of the consumption of sugar has created a hyperactive reduction in our health, so has the extra consumption of corporations use of abatement result in the poor health of our economy.
Arrowhead>>>----->